IPC History :
If the name of brothers of the cost ring a bell, it is because it has marked human history by some terrible actions done by Pirates, Buccaneers, Corsairs, Privateers, Filibusters, Raider, Freebooter, Marauder, Rover, Picaroon, and Sea rover. But those old sea dogs also had extremely positive impacts on today's society and their contributions have been erased from history. Think about democracy, social benefits and there are many more!
Many centuries ago people started to celebrate their freedom and in a sense, they were saying thanks to those who brought that freedom, those brothers of the cost. Today, there are many pirate festivals in the world and every year we see an increase in their number and due to a lack of funding\support, we saw some amazing festivals disappeared.
Another phenomenon that increases in popularity in the past 20 years is creation of "Pirate Crews". People that come together, dressed as pirates to have a good time, to socializing around a good bottle of rum listening to sea chanties or to more modern pirate music. They also trained in swashbuckling art or other sailer skils. These "Crews" are also offten volunteers as animators or participants as reenactors at pirate festivals and again by lack of funding or support, amazing crews have disappeared.
Another phenomenon that increases in popularity in the past 20 years is the creation of "Pirate Crews". People that come together, dressed as pirates to have a good time, to socializing around a good bottle of rum listening to sea chanties or to more modern pirate music. They also trained in swashbuckling art or other sailer skils. These "Crews" are also often volunteers as animators or participants as reenactors at pirate festivals and again by lack of funding or support, amazing crews have disappeared.
Capt'n Smoo's Logs:
2015
In order to start the online festival called "Festival des pirates" Capt'n Smoo (Aka Marck Forget) created a fundraising activity. In November 2015, he asked for photos for amazing pirates around the world to create the 2016 pirate calender. The pirate community really jumped on board of this adventure. The gathering of photos was a real success. In December 2015, some pirates from the international community asked Capt'n Smoo if they could also sell the calendar as their own fundraising activity to support their pirate festival or pirate crew. As the pirate community has given Smoo so much, it was normal for him to say yes and the word international added to the cover of the calendar. It was the first step towards the creation of this amazing cooperation.
2016
In 2016, with the increasing popularity of the French Canadian Pirate Magazine "L'Écho des mers" in Europe, its editors decided to include more International contents in it and again Capt'n Smoo jumped on the occasion to request from the international community some pirates to interview and again the community answered the call. Many interviews and articles were written to the pleasure of both parties. Also in 2016 some of the Pirate media joined the International Pirate Award organization to support in promoting the result of their survey. A second bridge was forming, and the philosophy of Pirates helping (supporting) Pirates was taking shape.
2017
In 2017, the bond between all those individual pirate organizations grew so much that the administrator of the Festival des Pirates tried to give this phenomenon a name. For a little while, it was referred to as "The International pirate Industry", but the majority did not like it, so, we decided to refer it just as the International Pirate Community (IPC) and in French, it became "La communautée Pirate Internationale" but to add our motto of Courage, Perseverance, and Commitment. This name attracted a lot of curiosity from the pirates in general. They wanted to know more about it and be more included in the desition process. Capt'n Smoo received a lot of invitations from Europen Pirate Festivals to go to their festival to talk about the direction and mission of this IPC. As it was financially impossible to travel all over Europe to explain the concept and gather requirements, it was commonly agreed to set up a meeting in 2018 at one festival location where representatives of each country could meet to socialize, exchange their know-how and plan for the future of the IPC. I was also agreed to repeat this gathering referred to "Pirate Rendez-vous" every second year in alternation between countries and continents. A survey was sent to the participating countries and a vote took place to find out which festival was the best suitable to host the firest Pirate Rendez-vous. It was the Festival Grain d'Pirate in Binic France to won. So, arrangement for what became "The 1er Pirate Rendez-vous Europe 2018 Binic France started.
2018
In 2018, in order to support this new project we needed besides the annual pirate Calendar fundraising activity some more finance before the month of august and the only way to do that was to create a second fundraising activity. Again the community was called to the help and this time they decided something new, to create a playing card deck to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Black Beard that would have 54 pictures of today pirates from the four corners of the seven seas. This activity was very beneficial for the entire international pirate community as monies were returned to Grain d'Pirate Festival, to some of the crews that have sent representatives to Grain d'Pirate and also to some crews that needed some monies to survived or financed some of their annual activities. Three major points came out of the 1er Pirate Rendez-vous 2018
One: That not a discrepancy among gender, sexual orientation, physical appearance was going to be accepted.
Two: That all pirating style needed to be included.
Three: That a flag was needed to identify the IPC. So, a vote was done and the most popular flag chosen was the Calico Jack (as his crews included women, all kinds of races and bisexuals). it was decided to add the acronym IPC and the French equivalent CPI and when possible the motto of Courage, Perseverance, and Commitment.
2019
2019 was extremely busy for the IPC, we had for thematic " Pirate O' Music" We tried to better organize to communication to all the media partners and also to the community in general. So some tools were needed to support the pirate musical community needs. Festival des Pirates gave to IPC three of its tools, the News Room FaceBook group, the international pirate map (with Pirate Globe 1.0) and the project Bill Bones' Top 25 project. To financially support some pirate crews and festival, we ran two fundraising activities, the calendar and also a new pirate playing card deck staring some of the IPC musical band (a wonderful idea that was proposed by Arnaud Libertalia from the band Libertalia).
Along that thematic came a big question what song pirates are that bring them together? The answer was "Hoist the Colours" from a song from the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean". With all rights owned by Disney's, it was extremely hard to start a dialogue with them on the right to sing this song in our pirate gathering. So, a suggestion came from a pirate in a Facebook post, "Why not create our own Pirate Anthem?" That, me brothers and sisters of the cost was the best suggestion ever! So a project was started, and we invited the pirate community presenting us with for demo by the end Feb 2020. This Pirate Anthem will be unveiled at the second pirate Rendez-vous 2020.
Also started at the end of 2018, the preparation of the 2nd Pirate Rendez-vous North America 2020 had winds in its sails, but it slows down when a communication issue with the selected host brought the project to a dead stop. With less than 18 months to go, there was no time to revote a new destination. As we already had the required information on Piraten Abenture Festival in Zulpich Germany, we contacted Ralf to see if he could be our new destination and he agreed. The 2nd Pirate Rendez-vous North America 2020 became 2nd Pirate Rendez-vous Europe 2020 Zulpich Germany.
At the end of 2019, the IPC was approached by the Order of Leviathan to see if it was possible to help them get some international visibility and it was voted by the officer to help them. We have helped them in the nomination of international pirates the have illustrated themself by their actions among the IPC.